Yesterday morning the Colorado Department of Education unveiled the latest CSAP (state assessment) results. It’s hard to believe: in the past these events attracted a lot of fanfare. But for the most recent announcement, I missed the brass band and confetti. Maybe because there wasn’t any.

And that doesn’t take into account the fact the release was scheduled on primary election day, which limited the news media coverage. Oh, well.

The Denver Post reports that CSAP scores once again were flat, though there were some notable bright spots, like Beach Court Elementary and the West Denver Prep and Denver School of Science and Technology charter schools in DPS, and Mapleton Public Schools.

On the larger scale, however, Colorado education reformers can be anything but satisfied. Disappointed would be a better word. We still have a long ways to go. It’s time to look at what the more successful Colorado schools and districts are doing while also broadening our vision to look at other states with clearly successful track records (e.g., Florida’s education reforms).

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It’s almost too obvious to say, but worth repeating to those who don’t want to listen: Not all public charter schools are good. But nearly all are offering families a viable education alternative, and many are outperforming their traditional counterparts — some by a significant amount. Like KIPP (Knowledge is Power Program).

A new study conducted for KIPP by Mathematica shows exactly that. KIPP charter schools are making a positive impact on the primarily poor and minority student populations they serve. The examination of academic progress at 22 KIPP middle schools yielded some glowing results, including:

• Nearly all 22 schools have significant positive effects on student math performance over three years, mostly in the second and third year
• Most schools have significant positive effects on student reading performance over the second and third years, not as many in the first year
• “Estimated impacts are frequently large enough to substantially reduce race- and income-based achievement gaps within three years of entering KIPP.”
• Most KIPP schools have more students held back a grade (largely because they don’t practice social promotion) but have no higher levels of student attrition than their public school counterparts

Perhaps most interesting of all is the way this study destroys the myth that KIPP owes its success to attracting students who are more gifted than their peers. As the report highlights: Continue Reading »

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A little earlier this week the U.S. Department of Education released the research results from the final evaluation of the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). What did it say? Basically, an admission that the very small program hasn’t had any tremendous impacts — oh yeah, except for this one:

The Program significantly improved students’ chances of graduating from high school, according to parent reports. Overall, 82 percent of students offered scholarships received a high school diploma, compared to 70 percent of those who applied but were not offered scholarships. This graduation rate improvement also held for the subgroup of OSP students who came from “schools in need of improvement.”

Writing on Jay Greene’s blog, Greg Forster deconstructs the control group (since the graduation rate for D.C. Public Schools is actually 49 percent), and concludes the grad-rate benefit from the voucher program is “somewhere between 12 percentage points and 33 percentage points.” Continue Reading »

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This week the state’s latest 3rd grade reading test scores came out. As the Denver Post’s Jeremy Meyer points out, the results were disappointing:

Year after year, the number of proficient third-grade readers in Colorado stays mostly the same — hovering around the 70 percent mark — mirroring a trend occurring nationally.

On Tuesday, the state released unofficial and preliminary results of the Colorado Student Assessment Program third-grade reading test, showing 70 percent of the students proficient or advanced in reading, 3 points lower than in 2009.

Of course, the big picture sometimes clouds bright spots: Continue Reading »

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Yesterday brought news from the U.S. Department of Education of the new state-by-state NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) scores in 4th and 8th grade reading. These tests are the gold standard for comparing student performance between states and over time.

The big headlines note that in the short term (since 2007) the nation’s reading scores stayed flat in 4th grade and ticked up slightly in 8th grade. In the long term (going back to the first comparable tests in 1998), the results are exactly the opposite: with 4th grade scores going up modestly and 8th grade scores essentially remaining the same. Colorado’s achievement at both grade levels remains above the national average, but continues to track at about the same level of progress.

The real long-term winner is still the state of Florida — which, as Matthew Ladner reports on Jay Greene’s blog, not only is boosting student performance across the board but also cutting the achievement gaps based on race and poverty. Continue Reading »

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As Ed News Colorado reports today:

The number of full-time students attending online programs across the state grew 12.5 percent to 13,128, or the equivalent of the 19th largest school district in Colorado.

The remarkable point in the story is that 12.5 percent is the second-lowest rate of annual growth for Colorado public online programs in the last six years. Still, it’s gigantic compared to the state’s overall enrollment growth of 1.7 percent. Ed News Colorado points out one reason why the demand continues to grow: Continue Reading »

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So with this new year of 2010, I’m really thinking all futuristic. Yesterday it was brain skills testing. But what about technological changes that promise to transform our education system?

That’s what Harvard professor Clayton Christensen writes about in his 2009 book Disrupting Class: How Disruptive Innovation Will Change the Way the World Learns. If you can’t afford the time or the money for the book, then you’ll at least want to check out this audio/video presentation on the topic by Dr. Scott McLeod (H/T Mike Antonucci). Continue Reading »

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Remember the poor kids in our nation’s capital who benefit from the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program?

Last night D.C. Parents for School Choice Executive Director Virginia Walden Ford sent out an email alerting supporters about a new troubling development from Capitol Hill:

Just an hour ago, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the omnibus bill that kills the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program (OSP). This is devastating news, and it means that if this bill makes it through the U.S. Senate and is signed into law by President Obama, the OSP will slowly die, with no new students permitted to access great schools through this groundbreaking program.

When we began the fight to save this program more than a year ago, we pledged that we would fight hard and fight long and fight to the finish. We said we wouldn’t give up–regardless of the odds. Tonight is no exception. The House passed the voucher-killing omnibus by a tiny margin. The Senate must still act. So, we have not yet been defeated in our effort.

To get the full picture, check out a new Weekly Standard piece by Sheryl Blunt aptly titled “The Teachers’ Unions that Stole Christmas”: Continue Reading »

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I’ve told you before about groups like ABCTE that are reaching out to top-notch professionals and making it easier for them to make an effective transition into classroom teaching. But where’s the proof this is a good idea for the bottom line of education?

In the new edition of Education Next, Daniel Nadler and Paul Peterson show that states with genuine alternative teacher certification programs (like Colorado) have experienced greater gains in math and reading scores, and especially among African-American students. Is it a coincidence, or cause-and-effect? Ultimately, it’s hard to say.

But as the authors conclude, the arguments against alternative certification have been eroded:

But the burden of proof would now seem to shift to the plaintiffs in the Renee v. Spellings case, who argue that traditional state certification is necessary to ensure teacher quality. Genuine alternative certification opens the door to more minority teachers, and student learning is more rapid in states where the reform has been introduced. Meanwhile, scientific evidence that alternative certification harms students remains somewhere between scant and nonexistent.

The Race to the Top push in Colorado has brought forth some good ideas, but a truly bold and visionary effort also would have included a stronger push to expanding the variety of certification routes that competent professionals can take to the classroom.

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Last year I told you about the remarkable education reform success story in Florida. The elements of this success can be traced to a comprehensive set of policy changes made while Jeb Bush was governor, including:

• School accountability
• Student accountability
• Private school choice
• Scientific-based literacy instruction
• Alternative teacher certification

In a comprehensive article for the Summer 2009 edition of Education Next, Matt Ladner and Dan Lips explain exactly what Florida did to make dramatic gains on 4th grade national test scores.

Perhaps more importantly, they take on critiques from those who say the scores are misleading because of social promotion policies or can somehow be attributed to other education initiatives voters approved: universal preschool and class size reduction. Check out the article.

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